Free and Open Learning Materials

Ru Story-HuffmanJudy Orton Grissett

What does free and open mean?

• Free = No (or very low) cost to students• Open = Instructors can edit the material as the

licensing allows– Visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ for

more info on licensing• AKA, “Open educational resources” or OER

Why does this matter?

• Textbook costs are increasing– Students spend about $1200/year on textbooks

and materials (College Board, 2015)• Subsequently, many students do not purchase

the textbook

What can we do?

• Adopt or adapt free and open learning materials for our courses

• Many resources available:– GSW OER libguide: http://libguides.gsw.edu/OER– Us!• Ru Story-Huffman, Campus Coordinator• Judy Orton Grissett, Campus Champion

Support is available

• Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation Grants– More information available at:

http://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/about/grants_rfp_rounds678/

– A total of 7 Textbook Transformation Grants have been awarded to faculty at Georgia Southwestern State University.

What have we learned?

• 11 GSW faculty from various disciplines completed a 13-question survey through SurveyGizmo regarding their experiences with OER. – Faculty were from biology (n = 2),

library/education (n = 1), music (n = 2), and psychology/sociology (n = 6)

• Question: “How would you rate the quality of the OER textbook/materials used for this course?”

• Question: “In future courses, how likely are you to use OER textbooks/materials like that used in the course this semester?”

Response nWorseSameBetter

461

Response nVery unlikelySomewhat unlikelySomewhat likelyVery likely

1136

OER Subject Guide

http://libguides.gsw.edu/OER

Questions or thoughts?

• ALG Campus Champion– Judy Orton Grissett (judy.grissett@gsw.edu)

• ALG Campus Coordinator– Ru Story-Huffman (ru.story-huffman@gsw.edu)